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Mitt Romney’s Secret Weapon - If He Can Bring Himself to Use It

By upholding Obamacare, Chief Justice John Roberts has given
Mitt Romney a significant opportunity in the election campaign. But
he could blow it if he doesn’t use a “secret
weapon.”

The Supreme Court decision assures that Obamacare will be among
the top campaign issues, and polls continue to suggest that a
majority of voters don’t like it.

Roberts offered what might become known as trans-gender justice
(first it’s one thing, then it’s another) that seems to
have outraged many independents as well as Republicans who want to
uphold the Constitution, not sanction arbitrary power.
Roberts’ decision could spur a higher turnout among voters
critical of Obamacare.

Roberts ruled that the Obamacare mandate is simultaneously a
“penalty” and a “tax,” an unprecedented
claim apparently first advanced by the Obama administration’s
lawyer during oral arguments last March. As a New York
Times headline put it, “The Health Mandate Is Not A Tax,
Except When It Is.”

The idea could have come straight out of Alice in
Wonderland. “If I had a world of my own,” Alice
thought, “everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what
it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And
contrary-wise; what it is wouldn’t be, and what it
wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

In their dissenting opinion, justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
and Alito wrote that Roberts conjured “a creature never
hitherto seen: A penalty for constitutional purposes that is also a
tax for constitutional purposes. Of course, in many cases what was
a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty could have been imposed
as a tax upon permissible action; or what was imposed as a tax upon
permissible action could have been a regulatory mandate enforced by
a penalty. But we know of no case, and the Government cites none,
in which the imposition was, for constitutional purposes,
both.”

Roberts didn’t review the law as he found it. He
arbitrarily rewrote the law, performing a legislative function. The
law described the mandate as a penalty, not a tax. Obamacare was
never sold as a tax. Members of Congress didn’t pass it as a
tax. The administration hoped the law would be constitutional on
the basis of the ever-expanding Commerce Clause. Roberts upheld
Obamacare by asserting an unlimited taxing power.

As a tax, the mandate violates Obama’s solemn vow never to
sign a middle class tax hike. “If you are a family making
less than $250,000,” he promised during the 2008 campaign,
“you will not see your taxes go up. Not your capital gains
tax, not your payroll tax, not your income tax. No tax!” Many
voters will get tax bills rather than health care freebies, and
they could become angry when they realize they elected the Wizard
of Oz.

Romney’s options? He has repeatedly critiqued Obamacare,
and he has vowed to start repealing it on day one of his
administration, if he wins the election.

Romney will have to go beyond his critiques of Obamacare,
however, and offer a simple alternative with specifics. Ronald
Reagan campaigned successfully with just three key points. The
simpler Romney’s proposed program, the more people will be
able to remember it and support it. Romney will go nowhere with a
health care plan as bulky as his 59-point jobs plan.

Romney’s health care plan should offer everyone more
choices and provide incentives for people to be concerned about
costs, like consumers of other services. Health insurance must
belong to individuals and be portable, rather than tied to
employers via business expense tax deductions. Romney’s plan
should foster competition, not a witches’ brew of extortion
and regulatory breaks that marked the Obama administration’s
back-room dealings with Big Pharma. Certainly consumers should be
free to buy health insurance across state lines. It should be legal
to buy inexpensive health insurance policies offering the most
basic coverage. People shouldn’t be forced to pay higher
premiums that subsidize other people’s risks, some of which
(like smoking and obesity) are affected by lifestyle choices. It
doesn’t make sense to try helping the minority without health
insurance by adopting a system (Obamacare) that would cause
millions of people to lose health insurance coverage they want to
keep.

In addition to questions about Romney’s plan, many people
wonder whether the Republican Party has the resolve to repeal
Obamacare.

During the 1960s, there was talk about repealing Medicare, but
obviously nothing came of that. Republican President Richard Nixon
actually expanded Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits.
Reagan promised to abolish the Department of Education (which
didn’t educate anyone) and the Department of Energy (which
didn’t produce any energy), but those bureaucracies are still
around — with bigger budgets than ever. Republican President
George W. Bush ushered in a new Medicare entitlement, the
prescription drug program. When President Obama announced his plan
to help pay for Obamacare by cutting $500 billion from Medicare,
Republicans rushed to defend Medicare — the entitlement
that’s going broke the fastest.

The most important issue for Romney is skepticism about his
resolve, since the government-run health care plan he promoted in
Massachusetts was a model for Obamacare. Romney has steadfastly
defended Romneycare. He has strained credibility by insisting that
government-run health care is okay for a state but not for the
federal government.

Government-run health care, whether at the state or federal
level, tends to have similar problems. When government taxes the
general population, then channels some of the proceeds into a
particular sector, this can drive up costs in that sector. State
health care subsidies (as in Massachusetts) generate upward
pressure on health care costs there, and federal health care
subsidies generate upward pressure on health care costs across the
country. Governments commonly try to control costs by introducing
price controls that make it harder to provide health care. This is
why many doctors stop accepting Medicare or Medicaid patients. In
addition, there are rationing boards that determine who will be
permitted to get various procedures and medications — and who
will be denied. Elderly patients are most likely to be denied.

Since Roberts issued his decision, the president has been busy
reminding everybody that Obamacare, including the mandate, was
based on Romneycare.

What is Romney going to say when he debates Obama? The president
will have an opportunity to ask how Romney could seriously
criticize Obamacare, since he never disavowed Romneycare.

The public is likely to become increasingly confused as Romney
critiques Obamacare while continuing to suggest that Romneycare is
doing fine.

As long as Romney declines to acknowledge that Romneycare was a
mistake, Obama will be able to keep him on the defensive.

Yet how fast the tables would turn if Romney uses a secret
weapon: namely, candor. It’s something seldom seen around
Washington. Suppose Romney candidly acknowledges that he’s
human, and he makes mistakes, but he’s capable of learning
from experience.

Romney could add, with devastating effect, that America
desperately needs a president who can learn from his mistakes and
be candid with the American people.

Political leaders have been hailed when they switched from a bad
policy to a good policy. Remember how Bill Clinton opposed the
Republican welfare reform bill that arose from the
Republicans’ Contract with America? Then he did his famous
pirouette, signed the bill, it succeeded in reducing welfare
dependence and encouraging employment among the poor, and Clinton
went on to win a second term.

Romney’s mistake with government-run health care in
Massachusetts is a policy mistake, not something serious like a
moral shortcoming. In any case, voters have forgiven many moral
shortcomings. Clinton’s supporters didn’t abandon him
because of his Oval Office escapades, even after he was impeached.
The press remained spellbound by John F. Kennedy, despite his
hyper-womanizing. Grover Cleveland was accused of fathering an
illegitimate child, and his opponents coined what seemed to be a
devastating slogan, “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa?” But
Cleveland displayed courageous candor. He acknowledged that he had
an affair with the woman in question and that it’s possible
he was the child’s father. Well, Cleveland won the election,
which led to a second slogan gleefully answering the first one. The
entire string became: “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa? Gone to
the White House! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

What voters don’t like is blatant lying. Nixon, of course,
is Exhibit A. With his back room scheming and his claims of
Executive Privilege, he engineered the Watergate cover-up to hide
incriminating evidence. The cover-up turned out to be worse than
the botched burglary at the Democratic National Committee offices.
The ensuing scandal was not unlike the situation Obama’s
Attorney General Eric Holder finds himself in now for refusing to
provide documents –now hidden behind Executive Privilege
— about the administration’s botched “Fast and
Furious” scheme that channeled semi-automatic weapons to
Mexican drug lords and resulted in the death of a U.S. border
patrol agent

So it’s difficult to understand why Romney stubbornly
refuses to acknowledge that Romneycare was a mistake. Maybe he
fears Obama will hammer him relentlessly for his candor. He might
be called a flip-flopper (again). But since most voters seem to
dislike Obamacare, they must dislike Romneycare, too. Far from
being antagonized by Romney’s candor, the anti-Obamacare and
anti-Romneycare majority would probably congratulate Romney for
coming home at last, after his time in the wilderness.

People don’t typically pile on a person who acknowledges
his mistakes. People tend to be forgiving, because everyone makes
mistakes. People admire candor and humility.

It takes a strong person to publicly acknowledge his mistakes,
and a Romney moment of candor could dramatically display his
strength and enhance his personal appeal. He would show himself to
be human, vulnerable and bold. Such candor could electrify his
campaign and improve prospects for replacing Obamacare with
commonsense health care reforms.

If Romney is ever going to make such a bold move, now is the
time, amidst the groundswell of outrage at the
administration’s high pressure tactics that intimidated the
chief justice and threaten our future.